Quite widespread instability is forecast in NSW and SE QLD for today though moisture suggests Northern Tablelands and North West Slopes will be better. Saturday still appears to the best day for storms, then the target moves inland Sunday.

Storms are active in the Moree region at present. Plenty of lightning showing on the tracker.

Good luck up that way. Personally I'll hang around Sydney with the trough and move up with it as planned. I am rather disappointed with the overall change in pattern. It seems the activity is surrounding a ridge.

Certainly will be hot enough I would suspect to break the cap but you would sometimes wonder from the various models where the actual ridge really is. I'll await the 18Z data.

You may find the action being on the ranges and perhaps northwest slopes or any wind change that occurs. Today is a rather difficult day to pinpoint where the best action may be given variations in upper level temperatures etc and the position of the surface trough/heating.

Got a good view from here of a cell just north of Pilliga trying to break the cap and now its through and growing fast. Doesn't look like anything on the RADAR yet, if anything the rain is contracting, but hopefully something will come of it.

Can't see any detail in the storms to the NW due to lower level cloud and rain.

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Jeff Brislane

I just got back from a local chase around Penrith as a severe cell came off the mountains. It had some nice LP type structure and it also had pronounced base rotation for a period. Got a lot of good pics too. Awesome to finally get an organised cell in western Sydney after such a long break.

I was on that Penrith cell from when it exploded. I have some awesome timelapse of it. I was situated at Castlereagh and when the new updraft took off, I knew I was in business. It exploded like any other LP supercell I had observed in the past. And the dying stage was great with the classic base shrinking upwards.

I ended up getting to Muswellbrook minus one kangaroo. I knew the odds were against me but within the last 10km of Muswellbrook and with my hopes high that there was car say 500m up the road 'perhaps' scaring it off and lights on low beam, out it came unhindered straight in front of my vehicle. I sustained less damage than the roo itself I would suspect most likely killed instantly.

(Not to start any threads on the kangaroo situation so please do not comment off topic here, but the kangaroo situation is the worst I have seen it in all the years I have been chasing. When it is evening, consider calling it a night in the nearest town).

I was awoken from an afternoon nap by the unfamiliar sound of deep rumbles to the west. 3pm, and a developing storm out penrith way revealed a well defined anvil rim extending like a blanket over parramatta out to the coast. overhead features of well defined mammatus were complimented by some structure over the cell core in the form of a brief display of an inflow band. So as Jeff had described earlier, the storm certainly displayed some decent structure. It did dissipate quite quickly after 4pm. Instability in the atmosphere was still evident around 5pm with the northern sky again displaying some nice downward convection in the form of mammatus offset by some castellanus to the west. Sunset revealed further decaying mammatus clouds and fibrous anvil remnants over the coast to our east. To the western sky and the area between Blacktown and Penrith a cell was developing with a high base but not much definition in the base. The onset of twilight though, exposed an intra-cloud flash of sheet lightning. Well that was the trigger to get this dormant storm photographer into go mode. A reserve near home was my best vantage point to capture the lightning which by now, 8pm was becoming quite active. It was in an arc between Blacktown and Castle Hill. Some lovely c.g's around blacktown and anvil spikes to the north gave way to further cg's between the Hills district and Hornsby. Strikes were very brief with little or no pulsing. Rain was disappointing with just a few spots out of the anvil. Lightning was frequent, every 2-3 seconds . This was a welcome event in a rather passive storm season thus far .The day's features certainly proved that our atmosphere is alive and still dynamic , albeit too briefly. Looking forward to seeing your photographic efforts from the day too Jeff, Cheers, Con.

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Jeff Brislane

I wish I was where you were on sunset as I couldn't get out of rain! I went up onto a vantage point nearby with my wife and within 2 minutes of being there we had a bolt go right over our heads and strike behind us! I scared us back into the car and after that it was a battle trying to keep the lens dry which I eventually lost. But to compensate I got a few shots and the lightning here was superb to say the least. We were positioned right in the middle of two developing cells that dropped plenty of amazing branched CG's.